Don’t make it hard for people to telephone you too

On many companies’ websites, potential prospects can glance at the top or bottom of the page and see the company’s local telephone number. Bingo. But on others, getting in touch is like some sort of ingenuity test.

Let’s try the ‘Contact’ link at the top, shall we? Oh look, a map of the world. Right, let’s click in the general area of Europe (and try doing that with your finger on a smartphone). Oh great, now here’s a drop-down menu asking me to select my country, with a list of 23 of them. Scroll, scroll (sometimes I wish I lived in Albania, rather than United Kingdom). Select country. Now here’s a list of 5 different offices. Which one should I choose? Are the blue widgets sold by the Applications Solutions Division or the Customer Experience Centre?

By this point, the only reason I’m not navigating back to Google to find another supplier to call is that I’d need to hit the back button what seems like a thousand times. Still, at least they didn’t make me navigate a map of the world and go through the ‘select your region’ test just to get on the website in the first place.

Discussion

This is a very good article and absolutely true of so many compaines, small and large.
There are however some shining lights where you do get the name of the person you wish to talk to, along with a direct dial and email address. It should be compulsory!